Byelorussian terrain

[JasonC]

I thought I'd get us started on musing on the sort of terrain it would be realistic to encounter for Bagration, when Red Thunder comes out. I've been going back over sources on the operation, both books and wargames, and have some thoughts to share.

White Russia in summer is wet. Really wet. Too wet for military operations, though they succeeded of course, as before in 1941 in another famous summer. By wet I am not referring primarily to the stuff falling from the skies, but the stuff running along or even more often, standing stock still on what passes for the ground. Basically the whole fricking country is one glorified bog, cut up by countless watercourses between the Niagara and the Mississippi.

Yes, we all know about the Pripyat, which formed the southern wall along which the operation extended but not any kind of jumping off point. That is a swamp. But north of the swamp you get --- marsh. And not a whole lot else.

From east to west, along the lines of the heaviest fighting, we start from position east of the Dnepr river, because the Germans were not sensible enough to pull back to that barrier and use it as a main line of defense. The terrain just east of that river is riddled with smaller tributaries emptying into it. So is the other side. Then about half way to Minsk you get the Berezina, which loops like the Mississippi in places, and has a bottom land up to 20 miles across of forests and marshes and tributaries of its own. Then just lesser rivers for a while, until back near the Polish-Lithuanian border you reach the Neman or Nieman river, with its own tributaries. That is off to the north - to the south the Pripyat sprawls endlessly, its whole edge laced by countless rivers and streams.

I took an old wargame of the region ("Red Army" by GDW) and drew some straight edges from the east edge to the west, in the middle of the campaign sector, and at half right (north) and left (south) positions. The three "cuts" cross major rivers 3-4 times, and smaller but still sizable ones 20-25 times each. You get a significant river every 6 to 10 miles as you walk from the Dnepr line west across Byelorus, basically.

Roughly half of the terrain north of the main swamp region is habitable farmland and settled areas, only a few percent of that cities and major towns. Most of the balance of that half is flat farmland cut out of the forest by human effort. The other half is covered by vegetation, split about evenly between drier, taller forest and wet, soggy, boggy marshland. The marshland means an open woodland of smaller trees, broken all over by small lakes and ponds, lined by the aforementioned rivers, but also featuring open meadows of reeds and ground moss that may look inviting enough - but the water table is about 2 inches below the surface. Step and you sink to your knee. This is not "swamp" - swamp is worse. Swamp means the surface is actual water, with some vegetation growing out of it. Marsh means there is a surface, of vegetation and "ground", but it isn't solid enough to be dry land to a civilized person.

That stuff is a quarter of the country, north of the southern sector. With another quarter the woodland, deep forest, not settled or very thinly so (along the rivers by boaters, along the few improved roads etc).

Go to the southern sector, outside the giant Pripyat proper, and it is still wilder. A sixth of the land is outright swamp or lake, with the surface actually water. Another 50% is the marsh described above, and another sixth is woods. Only one sixth of the land surface in the southern sector is settled, heavily inhabited land - farmland cut out of the woods on land dry enough year round to grow things, and a few towns. No, I am not describing the Pripyat giant swamp, this is what passes for the solid ground north of it - some of it reaching up to 25 miles south of Minsk, for example.

Continuing my cuts described above, in the center of the sector you can expect to cross a railroad half a dozen times, a paved primary road half a dozen times, and smaller decent secondary roads a score of times, traversing this sector --- as the crow flies, and in 1944. Combined the former two are half as common as the river crossings; with the latter they are comparable in number. If you hit a main route, you have roughly a 2/3rds chance it is a dirt road, roughly 1/6 chance it is a railroad, and the other 1/6th of the time you hit pavement.

Even along the main routes straight to Minsk, which is mostly going through the more settled farmland areas in this region, the road is cutting through wood or marsh at least a third of its length. There is one stretch crossing the Berezina meanders on the main highway from the south-central sector to Minsk that is in deep woodland fully 20 miles, with 7 minor river crossings on top of the main crossing of the Berezina. That's on the main drag in the area, mind.

Primeval doesn't do some of these places justice. When there is ground that is so waterlogged you can't grow anything there, people just abandon it year round. In the winter the marsh freezes and you have open snowy meadows and light forest. Devoid of routes and more sparsely inhabited than you would expect, but still passable. But let the snow melt, and the rivers course across the flat, lethargically carry their burden toward the Baltic, and a quarter of the country (in the good parts, 2/3rds in the south) becomes one big bog.

Discuss, or somefink...

[Chops]

Thank you for the detailed explanation of the terrain. I had an idea that it was wet and difficult terrain but not to the extent that you described.

I find it amazing that the Soviets were able to pull of such a massive and successful attack through this area. I have no idea how they got heavy vehicles and armor to cross this terrain let alone fight in it. Were the vehicle bogging stats astronomical?

[Wicky]

This vid shows the landscape you describe, plus the background chirping sans the pervasive summer mossies >

[MikeyD]

A fair bit of the basegame take place in Poland too. You can Google-earth Poland and virtually drive up and down the country roads to your heart's content.

I believe Hitler had concocted an engineering scheme to drain the Pripet marshes because they were a virtual a no-go area for anti-partisan operations.

[Freyberg]

I thought I'd get us started on musing on the sort of terrain it would be realistic to encounter for Bagration...

Very interesting, thanks. I remember reading of Germans telling stories about the misery of their retreat through this landscape, that was hot and humid and full of insects.

[JasonC]

Chops - naturally, people did not try to drive 30 ton tanks through a bog. They had to channel them along the limited road net, and use them in the more open farmland areas. But those tanks faced repeated difficulty navigating around the wet stuff, and had to cross the linear water obstacles repeatedly to get anywhere.

That is where the rifle arm comes in - they get to go through all the lousy areas and ford all the rivers, to come up on the few developed crossing sites where road crosses river from the right side of said river, to turn any defense at the crossing point itself. The very bleakness and wildness of the surrounding terrain makes for many places for those little turning hooks to go in, shallower or wider, to secure as many crossing sights as possible. The Russians used horse cavalry for those turning movements, too.

But it helps explain why the German infantry found itself holding fortified cities at the points where a paved road crossed an important river obstacle - because they might realistically hold off a tank corps for days at such a place, and it often could not just go around, on its own. Similarly, when one strong German panzer division with heavies reaches the front, it can stop up the main road routes for a whole tank army, until reduced. But it can't hold off the whole Russian army, or even hold the wilder countryside against leg infantry. It can't even drive there, if it could be spared. A 62 ton Tiger or a 45 ton Panther needs a whole string of intact bridges every few miles or it is stopped cold. And off road it is restricted to half the area, in cells cut up by water obstacles and tracks of wood and marsh.

[Michael Emrys]

Not a place where I'd want to commit a mechanized army. Are you starting to get a picture of why the cold war Soviets made as many of their vehicles amphibious as they could? And why each of their armies had extensive bridging capabilities?

Michael

[Broadsword56]

What I keep puzzling over is: How did the Soviets force so many troops and vehicles through such a marshy, forested, lake-studded area so quickly, over mostly dirt roads, in primarily wet weather, and not run into the kinds of traffic snarls and bottlenecks that plagued the Germans in the Ardennes, for example?

I'm thinking primarily of the Orsha corridor here, which (as previously announced) will be focus of the Soviet campaign in RT.

It's easy to overlook the tremendous staff work that had to go into coordinating even routine movements of formations in the field.

My sense is that the German defensive crust just disintegrated so quickly that it rendered those other issues moot. The Germans simply didn't have sufficient troops for the frontage, so defense in depth was impossible. The Soviet General Staff study does mention that mines, roadblocks, and small knots of resistance did pose real problems wherever and whenever the Germans managed to make a stand.

[AttorneyAtWar]

What I keep puzzling over is: How did the Soviets force so many troops and vehicles through such a marshy, forested, lake-studded area so quickly, over mostly dirt roads, in primarily wet weather, and not run into the kinds of traffic snarls and bottlenecks that plagued the Germans in the Ardennes, for example?

I'm thinking primarily of the Orsha corridor here, which (as previously announced) will be focus of the Soviet campaign in RT.

It's easy to overlook the tremendous staff work that had to go into coordinating even routine movements of formations in the field.

My sense is that the German defensive crust just disintegrated so quickly that it rendered those other issues moot. The Germans simply didn't have sufficient troops for the frontage, so defense in depth was impossible. The Soviet General Staff study does mention that mines, roadblocks, and small knots of resistance did pose real problems wherever and whenever the Germans managed to make a stand.

Well from what I remember reading the Soviets laid out wooden planks and other supports that they used to ferry there foot traffic and vehicles across. They were definitely prepared to come through the marshes.

[BletchleyGeek]

I think you're over-generalizing a bit Jason, for making these assessments I prefer to look into actual topographical maps.

One of the best sources freely available on the internet that give you reliable topographic information is the Perry-Castaneda historical map collection at UTexas, with high-resolution scans of the 1950s Army Map Service maps of the Soviet Union

http://www.lib.utexas.edu/maps/ams

The maps are 1:250,000 and compiled in the early 1950s, but the sources used were captured 1:100,000 1942-44 German maps, which were in turn copies of captured 1:100,000 1938 Soviet maps. It's a shame that they're too coarse to make out good maps for the CMx2 scale, but they're pretty much the best you can find translated into English.

Higher resolution maps - in Russian - can be retrieved from loadmap.net but in order to figure out the fine details of those you'll need to get a hold of that 1950's TM explaining Russian map symbology. In my experience - I've used both as sources for work which is inconsequential to talk about here - the AMS maps are in 90% agreement with the 1930s original Russian maps (there's the odd contour line off, towns moved a couple km's, typos that carry over transliterations from Russian to German to English ending up in mumbo-jumbo, etc.).

You can find the Perry-Castaneda collection index map here.

The maps NN-36-4 (Orsha is near the NW corner), NN-36-7 (Mogilev near the Western Edge) and NN-36-10 (Gomel is near the center of the map), cover the sectors where most of the 3rd Panzer and 4th Armee were deployed.

You'll see that north of Orsha there's a quite massive mass of primeval forests, bogs and swamps, that extend all the way to Polotsk - further north. That sector saw little fighting, as far as I know, it was very lightly held.

Along the Orsha - Mogilev line you'll see that major terrain feature is the Dnepr river, with the typical assymetrical orography in European Russia associated with major rivers: the western side is dominated by substantial bluffs and cliffs that dominate the eastern shore. East of the river we find a gentle rolling hills country, with substantial forests in this particular part of present-day Belarus. Two other distinct features catch the eye: the countryside is dotted by a substantial number of villages and cottages, connected by unpaved dirt roads. I'd say that as long as the weather is dry, motorized formations mobility should be good.

Around Gomel the terrain is much more interesting. We can see that to the north there's a quite extensive system of marshes and rivulets, to the west and southwest, some thick forests, and to the east, south-east and south there are two important rivers - the Sozh and the Iput. Here the fighting was quite protacted both in 1941 and 1944. As you say in your post, it's interesting to see the parallelisms between the fighting here in 1941 and 1944.

Going further west we can take a look at the Bobruysk area (NN-35-9) and take a good look at the Berezina river basin. It is indeed a major obstacle that divides the map into two halves. Looking at the quite dense dirt road network and thick forests, one gets a much better hold on the typical narrative of German columns 'lost' while trying to get on the safe side of the Berezina (and how much of hit-and-miss could be to not run into Soviet blocking positions) and how important it was that the Germans were unable to mount a coherent defense of this major natural obstacle.

We take a closer look into things, by referring to one of the loadmap.net maps (select "Old Russian Army Maps" category, at 1:50,000) showing us the critical crossing at Borisov (I have put it on my Google Drive account, to make things easier)

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B60Fz61zV5lgRkdPSGVrU1R5Ync/edit?usp=sharing

According to the legend in the upper left corner, it's a 1933 map - which is I think perfect to assess the terrain. The general pattern we observed at 1:250,000 is here magnified - the relatively abundant villages are still there, and the region is criscrossed by paths and unpaved roads. We also see that the great majority of the marshy terrain is close to major water courses. But those forests are far from being a wasteland - those geometric patterns forestry tracks, a major industry in the region (it's not coincidental that most of the biggest mass graves of victims of Stalin's Great Terror, which wiped out hundreds of thousands of people in Belarus according to certain sources, can be found in "forests").

Dismissing was used to be the Grand Duchy of Lithuania - or Litva - as a 'wasteland' is an overgeneralization and based on a very narrow perspective. Well into the 18th century Poland-Lithuania was a major European economical power (alas, not politically nor militarily). It is unfortunate indeed that it has happened to be a major battlefield several times in the last 200 years (during the Polish partition wars, Napoleonic Wars, First World War, Second World War), and more recently the receiving end of most of Chernobyl's fallout.

I recently read Norman Davies' "Vanished Kingdoms", and I kind of fell in love with Poland-Lithuania "lost cause". Which was indeed more worthy than any other 'lost causes' so much revered in wargaming circles

[MikeyD]

How did the Soviets force so many troops and vehicles through such a marshy, forested...

Lets not forget the bulk of German forces fell through encirclement (and reduction by artillery). They may be holding forested areas but imagine their supplies, food and communications links all cut and the front has moved 30-40 miles to their rear. They're in deep doodoo. That was a major problem with Hitler's 'siege fort' concept. Siege forts tended to get besieged. Oh, and lets not forget the Germans didn't exactly have unfettered access to all of those area either. That's where the partisan fighters were holed up.

[JasonC]

BG - not convinced. Your drive.google link didn't work for me, BTW.

First to explain the Russian plan and where the heavy fighting occurred. Bagration is a north and south prong thing, with a screen along the face between, rather like Kursk in reverse. One first needs to understand the German deployment and its weakness, then the Russian plan, and last how it played out.

The German line was anchored in the north on Vitebsk on the Dvina river, which had been turned into a fort, held by 53th Corps. The German line turned west there, and south to the Dnepr line at Orsha, with the line held out *east* of Orsha and on the eastern bank of the Dnepr. Much of the gap between the Dvina and the Dnepr is marsh, not clear farmland. The Dnepr is no longer a north-south river after Orsha - it turns sharply to the east there. The main Smolensk to Minsk paved highway runs along the north bank of the Dnepr, through Orsha but then staying on the western / northern side of the east-turning river there, skirting that marsh region just to its south.

The German defense continued as a "bastion" out well east of the Dnepr in front of Mogilev in the center of their line. Both Orsha and Mogilev were second line switching points, not part of the front line defense.

But then south of Mogilev the front line bent back to the Dnepr, and then over it - the Russians held two strong bridgeheads on the west bank of the river, along the route from Gomel to Bobruysk. Bobruysk was another German strongpoint city, this time back on the Berezina rather than up on the Dnepr, and again sheltered by a bastion line out in front of it. Note that the Berezina is convergent with the Dnepr in this region, and they flow together within the Russian position. The Russians had an important force - which I will cover in detail below - on the *west* bank not only of the Dnepr but of the Berezina, south south-east of Bobruysk.

This area is back into the marshland on the eastern extremity of the whole Pripyat complex, but it was also the mouth of both rivers fanning out across the main German frontage, the Dnepr farther east, then the Berezina.

So, 3 fundamental weaknesses of the German position - (1) on their far left, they were attempting to hold a forward "fort" in a northeastern salient at Vitebsk, (2) they put their main line on the east face way out in front of the Dnepr line instead of incorporating that line into their forward defense, and (3) on their far right, the Russians were already across the major river obstacles, in narrow bridgeheads over the Dnepr or a swampy headwaters position over even the Berezina.

The Russians thus had the ability to unzip the river lines from south to north, if they could push out of those bridgeheads. And in the north, they wrapped around Vitebsk on 270 degrees of the compass to start with.

That is the German plan and its fundamental terrain weaknesses. It also lack sufficient reserves - the only substantial ones were up in the north behind the Vitebsk "fort". As for the main avenue along the Smolensk to Minsk highway, it had 2 stronger divisions, one of them Panzergrenadier, but that was about it.

The Russian plan put 4 full fronts opposite that position. 1st Baltic had the sector north of the Dvina river, with a mission of enveloping Vitebsk from the west, as well as laying seige to it directly on its north face. They had 1st Tank Corps as a local exploitation force but it was fundamentally a strong rifle grouping.

The main prongs were 3rd Byelorussian Front from Vitebsk to slightly south of Orsha, with the main body, and 1st Byelorussian Front in the south in the bridgeheads over the Dnepr already described above. Between them, 2nd Byelorussian front was a pure rifle formation - if a large one - with a mission of just containing the overextended German position on the east bank of the Dnepr, and corralling those once they were forced back by the destruction of their flanks.

In the north, the main effort was not on Vitebsk frontally, nor on Orsha frontally, nor delivered south of the Dnepr river line. Instead it was all concentrated between the Dvina and Dnepr rivers, in the marshy gap between them. It had the intention of quickly reaching and using the main paved Smolensk to Minsk highway, to be sure. But the main effort was just north of that, and the plan was to achieve the breakthrough between Vitebsk and Orsha, hook south behind and west of Orsha, reaching that highway, then exploit west.

The business end of 3rd Byelorussian front for that task was the 11th Guards Army, in the center of its line. 39th Army screened Vitebesk frontally, 5th Army had 11th Guards' immediate right and was to attack alongside it and hold open the right edge of the breakthrough. 31st Army had a similar role to the left of 11th Guards.

11th Guards had the 2nd Guards Tank Corps immediately subordinate as its own exploitation force. But in addition, behind it were arrayed the 2 main operational exploitation forces for the whole offensive -first a cavalry mechanized group made up of 3rd Guards Mech Corps and the 3rd Guards cavalry corps, on the right, aimed through the midpoint between the Dvina and Dnepr, marshes be damned. And second but hardly least, the 5th Guards Tank Army, consisting of the 3rd Guards Tank Corps (with new T-34/85s) and the 29th Tank Corps. Which was behind the left rear of 11th Guards Army, ready to move to the Smolensk to Minsk highway as soon as the Guards rifle arm fought them to the route.

Over on the left, the spearpoints were in the Dnepr bridgeheads - 3rd Army with 9th Tank Corps in the northern of the two, 65th Army with 1st Guards Tank Corps in the southern of the two. And over on the west bank of the Berezina, in the unpromising marsh region, was the 2nd cavalry mechanized group, consisting of 1st Mechanized Corps plus the 4th Guards Cavalry Corps. None of the specific prongs in the south had the weight of the northern punch, but you had 3 tank or mechanized corps striking on converging axes, all from the right side of the rivers, aimed at Bobruysk - two in front and one in flank.

So, initially critical sector was 11th Guards between Dvina and Dnepr rivers.

One of the 3 break-in sectors in the south (cavalry mechanized group) was also in poor terrain. The southern bridgehead breakouts and the short hooks to envelope Vitebsk were fought over mixed ground, some of it farmland areas, some marsh or wooded (just south of Vitebsk e.g.)

Once they were through all those initial areas, the Germans fell back on their fortress towns. Vitebsk was held and besieged. Orsha tried to hold out even though 11th Guards had cut through to its rear and turned 5th Guards Tank loose behind that position. In the center, the "bastion" out east of the Dnepr fell back on Mogilev, which of course held easily - it wasn't even pressured yet - but was another trap for German infantry divisions that didn't make it back to the Berezina. And in the south, the Germans tried to hold in Bobruysk, falling back on it from all their positions up by the Dnepr, that had been indefensible to start with.

Next point, after the Russians are through in the north and "loose", the key point immediately becomes Borisov back on the Berezina river. First, it is on the direct route of the Russian armor to Minsk. If the Russians get to Minsk before Germans hold it in strength, then all those hold outs in all those cities east of the Berezina are just POW cages. Second, the Germans not only need to hold at Borisov to stop the immediate "checkmate" at Minsk by the Russian armor, they need to hold there long enough for their infantry out at the Dnepr line positions to make it back to the line of the Berezina, whether they fall back on Borisov itself, or farther north or south of it. It is the only feasible switch position covering Minsk, where the army group might stand long enough for reserves to arrive.

So this means the critical fight with the arriving German reserves happens around Borisov and in the Berezina river corridor. Which, as you note, is heavily forested and watered along its meandering length. In the event, the German 5th Panzer was able to hold off 5th Tank Army on that axis, if only for a matter of days. But the Russians got across the Berezina farther south and turned the 5th Panzer out of its position. Meanwhile, both 11th Guards and its supporting cavalry mechanized group farther to the north, hooked around the blocks thrown up along the main highway. The Germans fell back on Minsk with both flanks turned.

When Minsk itself fell, it meant everything out east of it was doomed. Yes there was additional heavy fighting clear to the Polish border, after that, and yes that western section of Byelorus, from Grodno to Minsk, is more farmland (still with substantial forests and dotted lakes etc, to be sure), and less marsh than the regions described above. But the operation was in the books by then as a smashing Russian success, and Army Group Center had 25 divisions torn out of it, and it really took most of AG South arriving to reform the line, that far back.

Given that disposition, plan, and history of where the critical fighting occurred, I stand by my description above. Yes there was open farmland and reasonable highways in one or two parts of the theater, and some heavy fighting in the cities of Byelorus, even. But the operation was decided by control of river crossings and by hooks to get them, through nastier ground.

One man's opinion...

PS - here is what the critical 11th Guards breakthrough sector looks like today in Google Maps.

https://www.google.com/maps/@54.8440493,30.5905938,77200m/data=!3m1!1e3

Notice, that clear-ish looking corridor along the Smolensk-Orsha-Borisov-Minsk highway was *not* the key breakthrough sector. The wooded area just north of it was. See the road labeled P109? Notice th e junction town at Liozna at the eastern end of that road? That is where the northern cavalry mechanized group assembled. Notice the next town east by southeast, Rudnya? That is the assembly area of the 5th Tank Army. Next, notice the little triangle formed by the labels for the roads P109, M8, and P87. That is where 11th Guards punched through and made the hole. The goal was to put 5th Tank Army on the crossroads of P15 and the M1, just northwest of Orsha. From its reserve position it *could* switch to the M1 and go straight down the road if the way were open. Or it could come through the "back door" to the north, cross the fields north of Orsha, and just bypass the place.

I hope this is interesting...

[Der Alte Fritz]

Quite good descriptions from everyone. Personal accounts are another good way of getting an idea of terrain. Jack Kagan's "Surviving the Holocaust with the Russian Jewish Partisans" which formed the basis of the film "Deliverance"with Daniel Craig gives a good description of Belorussia.

I think the German experience is best illustrated by their defence at Orscha by 78.Sturm and 25.PzGr against 11 Guards Army. The plan of attack by the 71 Rifle Corps is shown here between the river and the railway line:

http://www.armchairgeneral.com/rkkaww2/maps/1944W/3BF/71SC_31A_Byelorussia_tactik_39_June23_25_44.jpg

This is a narrow area of dry land running between the river to the south and an area of peat bogs to the north (the railway line shown on the map runs in the middle of the dry part.) The peat cuttings were surrounded by forest and very wet and boggy, even in summer. The German defence is long established and based on a series of trench lines and some trenches go north through the peat bogs. Most of the defenders were concentrated here with a battalion holding the line through the bogs.

The Soviet attack this area with massive force led by large tank formations but are held within the German defence zone. But they also attack through the peat bogs and here in the forests they overwhelm the defenders and breakthrough. Then they find a forest light railway and use the track bed to bring up armour and guns. The German position is outflanked and the Soviets are able to build up their forces despite a counter attack by 14.ID and ultimately surround the main German position trapping 78.Sturm in Orscha.

The Tank Army was originally planned to go through here at Orscha, down the main Minsk highway but as the main attack failed it was switched to the breakthrough position further north.

I think that is the experience of the Germans in Belorussia, good defence along constrained axes of advance with dry land and roads and railways which are then outflanked by Soviet Infantry going through the bogs, marshes and forests. Think of a similar situation to the British in Malaya being outflanked by the Japanese.

But lets not forget that in the same period to the south, you have the Lvov-Sandomir Operation which is through rolling open and wooded hills in the foothills of the Carpathian mountains and further north the flat open plains of Poland. So Red Thunder has it all reall.

[TheVulture]

Between them, 2nd Byelorussian front was a pure rifle formation - if a large one - with a mission of just containing the overextended German position on the east bank of the Dnepr, and corralling those once they were forced back by the destruction of their flanks.

Not sure I'd call it a pure rifle formation when the front had more tanks and more assault guns than the XXXIX Panzer Corps oppsing it (including the Felderrnhalle panzergrenadier division in reserve). They had 2 tanks bridgades plus an independent tank regiment (giving them 150 or so T-34s) plus the usual assortment of assault gun regiments and battalions.

However, your point is true I think; the main Soviet armoured formations were in the north and south, and on the Mogilev axis the majority of the work was to be done by infantry on foot, in contrast to the much larger mechanised groups in the 1st and 3rd Byelorussian fronts.

The mission of the 2nd Byelorussian front was also expanded from the initial plan. Originally it was intended to be mostly a small force to prevent the bulk of the German 4th army from disengaging to reinforce the main thrusts. By the time Bagration was launched it had expanded to being a serious offensive, albeit secondary to and smaller than the two main attacks, that was meant to break through the German defense and capture Mogilev, not merely keep the 4th army busy for a week or so while the real action went on elsewhere.

[BletchleyGeek]

Let's try with the Borisov map again, this time on Dropbox

https://www.dropbox.com/s/wns7kt6cpom90sq/N-35-70-A.gif

The land bridge doesn't consist of a marshy wasteland in its entirety, you just need to check out the maps in the links I provided. See how many roads, tracks and towns you can find there. Note how was the weather during the breakthrough, and assess whether those roads could actually function as roads or not.

More or less in the area you are talking a massive meeting engagement between 7th Panzer and 18th Panzer Divisions and two Soviet Tank Corps took place in July 1941. Indeed, not optimal tank country, but far from preventing entirely operations.

PS: GeorgeMC totally nailed it with the QB map that Bil and Elvis played on.

[Broadsword56]

Next, notice the little triangle formed by the labels for the roads P109, M8, and P87. That is where 11th Guards punched through and made the hole. The goal was to put 5th Tank Army on the crossroads of P15 and the M1, just northwest of Orsha. From its reserve position it *could* switch to the M1 and go straight down the road if the way were open. Or it could come through the "back door" to the north, cross the fields north of Orsha, and just bypass the place.

I hope this is interesting...

Highly interesting to me.

A key terrain feature in the area described above is Lake Orekhovsk, the long vertical lake seen in the Google Maps view. It becomes operationally significant because it's a barrier that requires a force attacking E-W to take an axis N or S of it. The road net diverts in those directions, too.

The S route has better going and is the fastest route to Orsha. But since the goal was to cut off Orsha and hook around it from the NW, I think the Soviet 2nd Guards Tank Corps took the route N of the lake. That wider arc also pockets the greatest number of German troops.

But the lake and terrain pattern here also help explain why the German counterattack with the 14th Infantry Division happened where it did. Just below the lake, there's a fairly open valley running SW-NE from Orekhovsk. It offers a good chance to hit the Soviet left flank as they try to make their deep penetration.

In the real battle the Germans were in such a crisis that they ended up counterattacking piecemeal with the 14th. But in a wargame it's interesting to explore what could have happened if, say, the Soviets broke through a bit later, the and the 14th Infantry Division was able to strike in a concentrated and more organized way. That wouldn't have changed the overall result of the operation -- but a "win" for the Germans can simply be preventing the German collapse and the fall of Orsha until later than it happened historically.

[JasonC]

BG- that one I can see, thanks.

And I think it makes my case very well. One, this is the built up main drag with the best communications routes, right into a major town. But still the Berezina is a meandering fenland along its length, except for one narrow built up area where the main road bridge goes across. There are two other railway crossings, that have to be up on stilts across the marshland, much wider than the river course itself. And one small path crossing north of the road bridge, north of "downtown".

Then scan back along the main road, and you see it has a small stream crossing well east of the city, then another stretch where the marsh comes right down to the road on the north side for a whole grid-square's length, with marsh off on the other side a quarter of a grid square away. The whole route east of the river is half in woods, a quarter in open farmland, a quarter as a raised tree-lined road rising to the bridge entrance downtown. Hardly the stuff of freewheeling offroad armor maneuver - it is a heavily channeled route and an AT mine pioneer's dream come true, for blocking armor.

Sure there are physical routes you can push armor along. But to get them past each "stopper", you will need to send the poor bloody infantry slogging through the woods or marsh for one more short hook, to clear out that blown stream crossing or mined narrow "bridge" between sections of marsh, and the like - over and over.

This is the aspect I would love to see CM Red Thunder scenario designers get right. That the tanks are powerful but almost caged beasts, in their separate "rooms" divided by segments of impassible tank terrain, with only narrow funnels between them. Making the cooperation of other arms essential, to get them into the next "room", then the next, and so on...

[JasonC]

TheVulture - on "pure rifle formation", of course I meant in Russian terms, distinguishing the mech arm from the rifle arm. Not armed only with rifles, but meaning no tank or mechanized corps or larger formations, all formations within the rifle armies as the operational units. Yes they had some supporting independent tank brigades and regiments, and plenty of SU-76 formations, and the usual plethora of supporting artillery and heavy weapons etc. Operationally, they were still a line holding and grinding force, not a hole-punch or an exploitation force.

Much of this is just about scale - the Russians treated rifle armies (strictly, "combined arms armies") and mechanized corps as their major operational units, and that is what my description /usage reflects. When a combined arms army was given a breakthrough role, it was typically assigned a full tank or mechanized corps as its immediate exploitation force. That 2nd Byelorussian Front had none assigned to any of its armies, is a clear indication of its intended screening role.

[Battlefront.com]

As we look at the German plan we see nothing good about it. It was poorly laid out, poorly resourced, and not designed to take the brunt of an all out offensive. To me it's like being tasked with building a 3 story house out of cardboard and then having a family of obese Americans move in instead of the small Asian family it was designed for. No way it could possibly hold up

Still, the Soviets did run into problems. In the area of the 78th Assault Division (east of Orsha, as the above graphic shows), the going was much slower than the Soviets expected. The armor was supposed to rush down the road after it was seized because the terrain did not allow for the armored forces to deploy adequately in that area. Instead they were set to exploit further west.

But what happened was 1st Guards Rifle Division stumbled upon some small gauge rail line that was used to harvest peat from a bog in their immediate breakthrough area. This rail line went west to a small town which initially processed the peat before it was moved to Orekhovsk, on the southern tip of Lake Orekhi. In back of Orekovsk was a major route that connected Vitebsk in the north to Orsha South.

When the Soviets found the going too slow along the main axis of advance, the 2nd Guards Tank Corps was rerouted along the rail line and skipped around Orsha to advance towards Minsk.

This shows how poor the ground was for mechanized operations. The small gauge rail line effectively became a bridge from where the Soviet tanks were waiting to where they wanted them to go. This underscores how few options the Soviets had for advancing their mechanized units rapidly in a westerly direction. It was the "Remagen Bridge" of the Belarus operation.

Not that the end would have been much different for AG Center if the rail line had not been discovered. It was doomed to destruction because it had such horrible lines of retreat and was so outclassed by the Soviet forces attacking it. But perhaps the Germans would have solidified the front a little sooner or more favorably than they did had the armored forces taken a little longer to get moving.

Steve

[JasonC]

DAF - 71st Rifle Corps did indeed attack just north of the river, and it is a great diagram of its attack corridor. But 71st Rifle Corps was part of 31st Army, not 11th Guards. The 31st Army sector extended from the open area along the road just north of the river - your sector - to the south of the Dnepr, and the direct approach to Orsha on the east bank of the river. 11th Guards had the sector to its immediate north, and as you correctly described, made the breakthrough in the peat bog / forested sector north of the clear farmland and road corridor.

[Vark]

I'm just re-reading Armstrong' 'Red Army Tank Commanders', and all the GTA commanders involved in Bagration mention the restrictive terrain, and its impact on the operations.

Steve, that's why the command led, command pull operations of the Red Army could be lethal when wielded by competent commanders. Operational redirection and exploitation, textbook Soviet doctrine, like Bil's recent AAR in macro-scale!

[Der Alte Fritz]

Great Google Map JasonC.

You can actually transpose the Soviet Operational Map that I posted onto the Google map.

Look at the big town at the bottom of the Soviet map marked м. дубровка this is shown on the Google map as "Dubrouna" and it is clearly on the river on both maps.

Follow the river eastwards towards the state border and you see that it curves northwards and then eastwards. The front of the German line is just beside the red box marked M1 on the Soviet map marked as кмривеа or on Google maps as the big green area just beyond the river bend.

Just to the north west of it you can see a big brown area - this is peat cuttings and represents the boggy area through which the flank forces made their penetration of the German lines.

[Der Alte Fritz]

DAF - 71st Rifle Corps did indeed attack just north of the river, and it is a great diagram of its attack corridor. But 71st Rifle Corps was part of 31st Army, not 11th Guards. The 31st Army sector extended from the open area along the road just north of the river - your sector - to the south of the Dnepr, and the direct approach to Orsha on the east bank of the river. 11th Guards had the sector to its immediate north, and as you correctly described, made the breakthrough in the peat bog / forested sector north of the clear farmland and road corridor.

Quite true but as you know and have written before, Soviet attacks stress the importance of the joins between formations and so attacks are always made across the join of two armies. The 71 RC was the right hand side of the 31st Army (which made lesser attacks to the south on the other side of the river) and the left hand side of the main attack (ie south of the road) while the other half of the attack made by 11 Guards Army in the following order:

5 ARMY

16 Guards Rifle Corps - 11 GRD - 3KM (This unit makes the breakthrough through 256.ID)

16 Guards Rifle Corps - 1 GRD - 3KM

16 Guards Rifle Corps - 31 GRD - 3KM

8 Guards Rifle Corps - 26 GRD - 5 GRD - 18 GRD - 2.5KM

36 Guards Rifle Corps - 84 GRD - 83 GRD - 2.5KM

HIGHWAY

36 Guards Rifle Corps - 16 GRD - 2.5KM

71 RIFLE CORPS/31 ARMY

RIVER

31 ARMY attacks along to the south against 25.PzGrD

http://militera.lib.ru/science/peredelsky_ge/s32.gif

The 36 GRC are the main attack on either side of the highway, the 8 GRC & 71 RC are the supporting attacks and the 16 GRC and 31 Army provide the holding attacks on either side. So the unit that finds the path through the bog was a supporting unit that then becomes the lead for the main part of the attack while the main attack stalls.

[John Kettler]

Bigduke6 perviously made this contribution to the war effort--Ukraine terrain pics he shot himself.

http://www.blowtorchscenarios.com/Ukraine%20Photos/Bigduke6_Ukraine_photos.htm

TM 30-548, Soviet Topographic Map Symbols, is the decryption key to the wealth of material found on period maps. By comparison, our topo maps conveyed relatively little.

http://cluster3.lib.berkeley.edu/EART/pdf/soviet.pdf

Regards,

John Kettler

[JasonC]

JK - yes, BigDuke6's pics were useful for what they meant to show. But we then are talking about Byelorus, not the Ukraine...